Tag Archives: weekly features

Thursday Quotables: The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo

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Welcome back to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week.  Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

NEW! Thursday Quotables is now using a Linky tool! Be sure to add your link if you have a Thursday Quotables post to share.

amy-schumer

The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo by Amy Schumer
(published 2016)

I never really thought of myself as a fan of Amy Schumer. I mean, I enjoy her show when I happen to catch it, and yeah, she does make me laugh — but now that I’m reading her new book, I think I can honestly say that I LOVE her. I wish I could quote pretty much the entire book… but that would not be a good use of space (and there’s a little issue of copyrights), so I’ll just share a random bit that I absolutely relate to:

Being an introvert doesn’t mean you’re shy. It means you enjoy being alone. Not just enjoy it — you need it. If you’re a true introvert, other people are basically energy vampires. You don’t hate them; you just have to be strategic about when you expose yourself to them — like the sun. They give you life, sure, but they can also burn you and you will get that wrinkly Long Island cleavage I’ve always been afraid of getting and that I know I now have. For me, meditation and headphones on the subway have been my sunscreen, protecting me from the hell that is other people.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

  • Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
  • Click on the linky button (look for the cute froggie face) below to add your link.
  • After you link up, I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week.
  • Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

Top Ten Tuesday: Top ten reasons to listen to audiobooks

Posted in Top Ten Tuesday by

TTT autumn 2_bsf

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is an audio freebie – any topic at all, so long as it relates in some way to audiobooks, podcasts, playlists… you get the idea.

Rather than listing some of my favorite audiobooks, I thought I’d list a bunch of the great things about audiobooks. Let’s see if I can get to 10!

  1. They’re great for driving — either short trips across town or hours-long road trips. The miles fly by while listening to a good story!
  2. They keep me from getting bored while doing mindless chores — especially folding laundry.
  3. Audiobooks are a great way to re-read a book without feeling like I’m neglecting newer books that I’ve been meaning to read.
  4. Listening to a book can give a new perspective on a story, just by hearing how the dialogue sounds out loud or how certain parts get emphasized.
  5. Sometimes, the author is also the narrator, and in the best of these, it’s wonderful to hear how the author chooses to portray his/her own characters.
  6. Great narration brings characters to life. For example, I liked Lord John (in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series and in the Lord John stand-alone books), but I didn’t LOVE him until I heard Jeff Woodman’s awesome narration. Somehow, he captures John’s aristocratic upbringing, his dry sense of humor, and his innate goodness so just perfectly.
  7. Funny books are even funnier read out loud. Wil Wheaton brought me to tears — laughing — with his narration of two of John Scalzi’s super funny sci-fi books. Something about the way he pronounced the aliens’ names… call me a child, but I cracked up every time.
  8. Creepy books are even creepier read out loud. Case in point: We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson may be a good book, but the audiobook is creeeeepy. The narrator puts in these odd inflections and does a sing-songy thing with some of the repeated lines, and man, it is so good.
  9. Audiobooks make great exercise motivators! I like to go for long walks, but when I want to go for really long walks, an addictive audiobook really helps. I have a hard time listening to audiobooks if I’m sitting still — so if I’m listening to something really intense or suspenseful, maybe I’ll walk the extra several blocks just so I can see what happens next!
  10. Somehow, I find myself willing to listen to books that I wouldn’t ever get around to reading. Again, this is probably because I listen to audiobooks at times when I just physically can’t read a hard copy book, so I don’t feel like I’m “wasting” my reading time. Through audiobooks, I’ve read some great non-fiction stories, and have even enjoyed a couple of collections of short stories, which I usually cannot stand to read.

There you have it — the 10 things I love most about audiobooks. Do you listen to audiobooks? What do you love most about them?

Please share your TTT link, and I’ll come check out your top 10!

If you enjoyed this post, please consider following Bookshelf Fantasies! And don’t forget to check out my regular weekly features, Shelf Control and Thursday Quotables. Happy reading!

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Do you host a book blog meme? Do you participate in a meme that you really, really love? I host a Book Blog Meme Directory, and I’m always looking for new additions! If you know of a great meme to include — or if you host one yourself — please drop me a note on my Contact page and I’ll be sure to add your info!

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Thursday Quotables: The Magician King

Posted in Thursday Quotables by

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Welcome back to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week.  Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

NEW! Thursday Quotables is now using a Linky tool! Be sure to add your link if you have a Thursday Quotables post to share.

MAgician King 2

The Magician King by Lev Grossman
(published 2011)

I just finished this terrific book, book #2 in The Magicians series. It’s all wonderful, but it’s hard to pick out just one passage for Thursday Quotables!

More or less at random, here’s a little piece of a speech by a favorite character:

“I don’t mind telling you that I found the whole business more than a little provoking. I was being called, you understand, and I most definitely did not want to come. I understand the appeal this sort of thing has for you, quests and King Arthur and all that. But that’s you. No offense, but it always seemed a bit like boy stuff to me. Sweaty and strenuous and just not very elegant, if you  see what I mean. I didn’t need to be called to feel special, I felt special enough already. I’m clever, rich, and good-looking. I was perfectly happy where I was, deliquescing, atom by atom , amid a riot of luxury.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

  • Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
  • Click on the linky button (look for the cute froggie face) below to add your link.
  • After you link up, I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week.
  • Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

Thursday Quotables: Moby Dick

Posted in Thursday Quotables by

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Welcome back to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week.  Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

NEW! Thursday Quotables is now using a Linky tool! Be sure to add your link if you have a Thursday Quotables post to share.

IMG_3906

Moby Dick by Herman Melville
(published 1851)

Call me crazy, but I’ve decided to finally buckle down and read Moby Dick, thanks to my favorite new toy, the Serial Reader app. (For more info, check out my post about Serial Reader here.)

Wait, call me crazy? Shouldn’t that be…

Call me Ishmael.

Sorry, couldn’t resist. I’ve read 10% so far, and I’ll admit that I’m actually really entertained! I love the main character’s description of Queequeg, a “savage” with whom he shares a bed at the inn before they ever even set sail:

With much interest I sat watching him. Savage though he was, and hideously marred about the face — at least to my taste — his countenance yet had a something in it which was by no means disagreeable. You cannot hide the soul. Through all his unearthly tattooings, I thought I saw the traces of a simple honest heart; and in his large, deep eyes, fiery black and bold, there seemed tokens of a spirit that would dare a thousand devils.

And a moment later:

He looked like a man who had never cringed and never had had a creditor.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

  • Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
  • Click on the linky button (look for the cute froggie face) below to add your link.
  • After you link up, I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week.
  • Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

Thursday Quotables: Leave Me

Posted in Thursday Quotables by

quotation-marks4

Welcome back to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week.  Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

NEW! Thursday Quotables is now using a Linky tool! Be sure to add your link if you have a Thursday Quotables post to share.Leave Me

Leave Me by Gayle Forman
(to be released September 6, 2016)

I just read Gayle Forman’s upcoming new release this week — her first book for adults! My review will be along shortly. Meanwhile, here’s a little exchange that made me smile for all the right reasons — an exchange between a pair of roommates who just love to bicker:

“Todd’s all pissy because I went out with Fritz.”

“On a date,” Todd added, as if that sealed the indictment.

“Yes, fine.” Sunita threw up her hands. “On a date.”

“That you didn’t tell me about.”

“That I didn’t tell you about.”

“When it was our night to watch Outlander.”

“We can DVR it. I don’t see see what the big deal is.”

They had me at Outlander.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

  • Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
  • Click on the linky button (look for the cute froggie face) below to add your link.
  • After you link up, I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week.
  • Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

Thursday Quotables: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Posted in Thursday Quotables by

quotation-marks4

Welcome back to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week.  Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

NEW! Thursday Quotables is now using a Linky tool! Be sure to add your link if you have a Thursday Quotables post to share.

HP4

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
(published 2000)

It’s never a bad time for Harry Potter.

A week ago, Harry would have said finding a partner for a dance would be a cinch compared to taking on a Hungarian Horntail. But now that he had done the latter and was facing the prospect of asking a girl to the ball, he thought he’d rather have another round with the dragon.

Oh, the woes of a teen boy faced with the horror of getting a date:

“Why do they have to move in packs?” Harry asked Ron as a dozen or so girls walked past them, sniggering and staring at Harry. “How’re you supposed to get one on their own to ask them?”

“Lasso one?” Ron suggested.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

  • Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
  • Click on the linky button (look for the cute froggie face) below to add your link.
  • After you link up, I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week.
  • Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

Thursday Quotables: A Farewell To Arms

Posted in Thursday Quotables by

quotation-marks4

Welcome back to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week.  Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

NEW! Thursday Quotables is now using a Linky tool! Be sure to add your link if you have a Thursday Quotables post to share.

Farewell to Arms 2

A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway
(published 1929)

I’m only on chapter two at this point — but I’ve never read Hemingway before, and I really enjoyed this paragraph from the very first page:

In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels. Troops went by the house and down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterward the road bare and white except for the leaves.

I have no idea what to expect, but I’m intrigued by the writing style and want to know more!

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

  • Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
  • Click on the linky button (look for the cute froggie face) below to add your link.
  • After you link up, I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week.
  • Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

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Thursday Quotables: Bag of Bones

Posted in Thursday Quotables by

quotation-marks4

Welcome back to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week.  Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

NEW! Thursday Quotables is now using a Linky tool! Be sure to add your link if you have a Thursday Quotables post to share.

Bag of Bones

Bag of Bones by Stephen King
(published 1998)

I seem to be on a Stephen King tear right now, probably because it’s summer, and somehow King’s brand of writing ends up being my perfect choice for beach reading. (What does that say about me???) I really loved Bag of Bones and the creepy mood sustained throughout.

That’s enough, a voice in my mind said uneasily. That’s enough, now. Go on back and get your car.

Except that wasn’t the plan. The plan was to go down the driveway, just as I had in the final dream, the nightmare. The plan was to prove to myself that there was no shroud-wrapped monster lurking in the shadows of the big old log house down there. The plan was pretty much based on that bit of New Age wisdom which says the word “fear” stands for Face Everything And Recover. But, as I stood there and looked down at that spark of porch light (it looked very small in the growing darkness), it occurred to me that there’s another bit of wisdom, one not quite so good-morning-starshine, which suggests fear is actually an acronym for Fuck Everything And Run. Standing there by myself in the woods as the light left the sky, that seemed like the smarter interpretation, no two ways about it.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

  • Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
  • Click on the linky button (look for the cute froggie face) below to add your link.
  • After you link up, I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week.
  • Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

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Thursday Quotables: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Posted in Thursday Quotables by

quotation-marks4

Welcome back to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week.  Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

NEW! Thursday Quotables is now using a Linky tool! Be sure to add your link if you have a Thursday Quotables post to share.

HP cursed

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J. K. Rowling, John Tiffany, & Jack Thorne
(published 2016)

HARRY POTTER! Seriously, HARRY POTTER! I read this on Sunday, and have been flipping through it since. It’s all wonderful, but here are a few favorite (non-spoilery) moments:

Scorpius: You know it’s the strangest of things, but ever since being in the scariest place imaginable I’m pretty much good with fear. I am — Scorpius the Dreadless. I am – Malfoy the Unanxious.

On a more serious note:

Harry: [Name deleted], playing with Time? You know we can’t do that.

[Name deleted]: How many people have died for the Boy Who Lived? I’m asking you to save one of them.

One more:

Albus: So what would you like me to do? Magic myself popular? Conjure myself into a new House? Transfigure myself into a better student? Just cast a spell, Dad, and change me into what you want me to be, okay? It’ll work better for both of us. Got to go. Train to catch. Friend to find.

I loved this book! I’m traveling this week, but when I get home, I plan to read it all the way through again… this time, calmly and with an eye for detail, rather than just inhaling it as fast as possible.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

  • Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
  • Click on the linky button (look for the cute froggie face) below to add your link.
  • After you link up, I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week.
  • Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

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Thursday Quotables: The Long Walk

Posted in Thursday Quotables by

quotation-marks4

Welcome back to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week.  Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

NEW! Thursday Quotables is now using a Linky tool! Be sure to add your link if you have a Thursday Quotables post to share.

Long Walk2

The Long Walk by Stephen King
(published 1979)

I read this book on vacation last week, and it gave me chills in all the right ways! How had I never come across this book until now? I love so much about it, including the fact that I can flip it open to a random page and immediately find a paragraph to share for Thursday Quotables:

Garraty became entranced with the coming dawn. He watched as the sky and the land lightened by degrees. He watched the white band on the horizon deepen a delicate pink, then red, then gold. The guns roared once more before the last of the night was finally banished, but Garraty barely heard. The first red arc of sun was peering over the horizon, faded behind a fluff of cloud, then came again in an onslaught. It looked to be a perfect day, and Garraty greeted it only half-coherently by thinking: Thank God I can die in the daylight.

Such a creepy, haunting read!

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

  • Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
  • Click on the linky button (look for the cute froggie face) below to add your link.
  • After you link up, I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week.
  • Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

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